Endnote 13 – A Temple Built for Two

Another possible Iron Age comparison has recently turned up at Tel Reh.ov in the upper Jordan Valley, only published in preliminary fashion. Belonging to about the early ninth century B.C.E. (Stratum V), it features both a stylized tree and two female figures flanking a double door into the square shaft-like structure. See A. Mazar, “The Excavatons at Tel Rehov and Their Significance of the Study of the Iron Age in Israel,” Eretz-Israel 27 (2003; Hebrew), pl. 13 (photo only). How ethnically “Israelite” Tel Reh.ov was, however, even in the early ninth century B.C.E., is uncertain. Finally, another fragmentary, possibly non-Israelite naos (or cult-stand) is known from an approximate tenth-century context at Pella, in the northern Jordan Valley on the east bank. Again, female figures stand at either side of a door or possibly a window; the artifact is fragmentary. See T.E. Potts et al., “Preliminary Report on a Sixth Season of Excavation by the University of Sydney at Pella in Jordan 1983/84, ” Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 29 (1985), pl. 42). This artifact is apparently a ceramic offering stand; but it seems like others that similarly represent a multi-storied “model temple,” with features that link it to the naoi.